Trailing Geek

A Trailing Spouse’s Job Hunt: Part One

When Girlfriendy accepted her offer of admission from Pleasant U in early February, I immediately did 3 things:

1. A sprightly happy dance.
2. Informed my employer at that time, Company X.
3. Started looking for jobs in Smallville.

Fortunately my many years at Company X and my very supportive manager made #2 a non-issue. They couldn’t have been more understanding. I think they appreciated that I told them so soon, giving them plenty of notice and time to find my replacement. There were a lot of unanswered questions and no firm dates attached to anything: I knew I was leaving…sometime in the future, which meant they had to hire my replacement…sometime in the future. They hoped they could bring someone on board sooner than later so I could train them. The search for my replacement pretty much started the day I gave them a heads up.

In an ideal world, I wanted my job search to coincide nicely with the sale of the condo…but I figured I could worry about that later, after I landed a job. With the poor economy and the fact I was moving to a much smaller job market, I was much more worried about finding employment, even with my portable techie skills.

This is what I knew about Smallville’s job market: the university and a couple of health care companies were its largest employers. Unlike Metropolis, it is not a high tech mecca. I was not exactly optimistic.

The jubilant high from Girlfriendy’s acceptance wore off after a week when I realized the challenge ahead of me.

My to-do list as I began job hunting:

• Update My Resume
  It had been 8 years since I started a new job, which is a lifetime in the tech industry. I certainly had outgrown the one page resume and was bordering on 3 pages at this point. I organized my resume into the following sections:
  • Objective and summary
  • Grid of technical skills
  • Chronological listing of jobs
  • College education and honors
• Website and Portfolio
  I put my tech skills to good use and created a personal website and portfolio. I think it’s essential nowadays, regardless of what industry you are in. And make sure you reserve an actual domain name, none of this “blogspot.com” stuff.
• LinkedIn
  Updated my LinkedIn profile, especially to highlight my skill set. Announced I was seeking employment in Smallville.
• References
  Contacted my references and got their latest contact information.
• Technical Interview
  Started brushing up on technical and non-technical interview questions and subjects. The web is a treasure trove of advice and examples when it comes to interview questions. For the technical interview questions, I found more accurate info in the tech books I already own vs. technical Q&A sites.

Coming up next: Part Two: Where and How I Looked for Jobs.